When her grandfather dies, 15-year-old Wei Wei (Xu Jiao) inherits his circus, particularly their star attraction: a baseball-playing gorilla, Ling Ling. Unfortunately, she also inherits his huge gambling debts and is only able to fend off the gangsters intent on taking over the circus, by signing Ling Ling over to a Korean baseball team. After some initial growing pains, Ling Ling proves a huge success, but when the gangsters sell a second, far more temperamental gorilla to a rival team, inevitably things go horribly wrong.
A notable China-South Korean co-production, Mr. Go was a huge financial investment on the part of CJ Entertainment, and the film performed far less impressively than they had hoped. While there is no denying the excellent effects work that bring Ling Ling to life in praise-worthy fashion, there is no clearly defined audience for this film, which invests far too much time and drama in the business workings of major league baseball to keep the children happy, while is also far too sweet-natured and goofy to really keep the adults happy. The film does work in parts, with scenes shot atop the stadium’s massive scoreboard inducing pangs of vertigo even in 2D, but the film simply doesn’t know what it is, what it wants to say, nor even who it’s talking to, and as a result it never really works.
